


Long Enough

by qwanderer



Series: Pardicer [15]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Gen, Multi, Post-Series, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:12:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9610934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qwanderer/pseuds/qwanderer
Summary: Tom Spencer opened the door to the group of three vaguely threatening individuals showing up on his doorstep after dark.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hi idk if this is the end of the series but it is very hard for me to write heisty plots all on my own without episodes so I'm gonna call this the end for now at least. There's always a possibility I'll come up with something more. Small references to other fandoms.

"You know, there's gonna be some fallout, if we do this," Hardison said, staring at the drive. "This is gonna change the shape of the world. And you know people are gonna want to take out the people that made it all possible." 

"There's gonna be some nasty people after us," Eliot agreed. "It wasn't the lowest profile heist, despite all we did manage to control. There's a whole interpol office full of agents who have a piece of the puzzle here, a piece there. Someone's gonna figure out who stole it." 

"I don't know for sure how the world is going to fit back together after we take out all these pieces," Parker said, "but I think, eventually, things will settle down enough for Leverage International to do our thing. So we send this to people who will use it. Get the ball rolling to take out the worst, the most powerful. And then we lay low." 

They all contemplated that for a moment. Generally when they went low-profile, they went their separate ways. But there was an unspoken agreement that they wanted to stick together, this time. Make sure the others were okay. 

"If we lay low all by ourselves we'll drive each other crazy," Eliot said. "We've gotta find someone to lay low _with_." 

Hardison grimaced. "They can't prove anything, but they know enough to keep an eye on my nana. And she's gettin' up in years. I wouldn't wanna impose." 

Parker tilted her head, thinking. "Nobody knows about Archie - yet - but I don't know if he's going to want in on this. There's a lot of money in that book. And we could use his help." 

Eliot sighed, long and tired, as he leaned back in his chair. "Listen... I cut ties with my family a long time ago. No one would think to pay special attention to that house. But if we can get there without anyone takin' notice... I'm pretty sure they won't turn us away." 

Parker frowned. "Why haven't you been back there, then?" 

"It's complicated," Eliot muttered. 

"Listen, we can find somewhere," Hardison said. "We can get through this. If you don't wanna be just the three of us, I have some virtual pals who I'm sure would let us couch surf for a little bit." 

Eliot eyed him. "You'd trust them with this? People you've never looked in the eye?" 

"Well, okay... yes, I would, but I get why you're uncomfortable with that." 

"I'd be willing to take your word on it, but... I wanna go back. I wanna talk to my dad again. My sisters. My gramma. I want... I want them to meet you." 

Hardison frowned. "And you'd trust them. People you haven't spoken a word to in, what, thirty years?" 

"There's different kinds of trust," Parker observed. "As soon as we met him, we trusted Nate to be honest with us. It took a long time before we trusted him with other stuff. Some people, you just know one thing about. And that's enough." 

Her boys were silent for a moment. Watching each other. 

"Yeah," Hardison said. "I get that." He was still looking at Eliot. "But why now? Why not before?" 

Eliot sighed. "Listen... you know I've been figurin' myself out, these last few years. There was a lotta time when I thought I couldn't go back. That I was someone that didn't deserve that kinda family, or wouldn't fit there at all anymore. And then, back in November, you know, when... the Value-More job ended, I thought maybe I could fit there again." He shook his head. "But I just... I just stood there. And I knew it wasn't right." His face contorted, pain, determination. "But I think it could be, now." 

"Shit, man," said Hardison. "Okay. We'll follow your lead on this one." 

* * *

Tom Spencer opened the door to the group of three vaguely threatening individuals showing up on his doorstep after dark. "Who're you?" he asked. So many emotions crossed his face, hard defensiveness, hope, confusion, frustration, tentative joy. "Eliot?" 

Eliot nodded. 

"Eliot! Oh my God, Eliot!" He reached out, then hesitated. "You want to come in?" 

"Yeah," said Eliot. "That'd be good." 

They all filed into the living room, decorated in a way that was traditional but also comfortable, Parker's eyes darting everywhere and examining everything, Hardison focusing on Eliot, and Eliot on his father. 

His father hovered, clearly not sure where to start. 

"Heard you might've been around," he said first. "While back, neighbors said a man stopped by. Thought it looked like you might have. Even after thirty years, Betsy still kept a sharp eye out for you. But you didn't stop in?" 

Eliot's face was tight, but he looked back at the other two, focused on Hardison, and then made his mouth move. "Thought I could only come back if I suddenly became the son you wanted. I kinda... I thought I might've been gettin' there. But then, standin' there, thinkin' about what I'd say, I realized I didn't want to be. And now I'm finally in a place where I thought, maybe I'd try comin' back and bein' the son I _am_ , instead." 

Tom's face was pinched, an echo of the way the expression looked on his son's face. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for what I said." 

"You were right," Eliot said, slow and jerky, a bit at a time. "About a lotta things. Army dragged me down to places I wish I hadn't been." 

His dad shook his head. "I was wrong, too. Hell, look at you. You're older'n I was, last time I saw you. Lord, I was so _young._ " 

"Lotta things've changed," Eliot offered. 

Tom nodded, then seemed to realize that they were all still standing in a cluster. "Come on. Sit down. Tell me. Who're your friends?" 

"Partners," Eliot corrected, keeping his eyes out for his father's reaction even as he moved. 

Tom raised his eyebrows. "Business, or...?" 

Eliot sat down on the middle of the sofa with a sigh. "Both, Dad." 

"Hmm. You never could settle for the kinda life the rest of us do. Always lookin' for more." 

He didn't mean it in a mean way. Parker could tell. But Eliot still looked squashed. 

"He would have," Parker said, pacing and glaring. "He would have had a normal job, chef in a good restaurant, maybe teaching at a cooking school. He would have been in love with us both and never said anything. He would have stayed our friend forever. He would have settled. He never asked for more. But he deserves more than that. And we love him. We asked. So why _should_ he settle?" 

"Yeah, girl, when you right, you right," Hardison added. 

Eliot's dad sighed. "World's changed," he said. "World out there is not the world I know." He looked at Parker. "Didn't mean it that way," he said. "I'm sorry, Miss..." 

"Parker." 

"Miss Parker. And..." 

"Hardison," Eliot told him. 

"And Mr. Hardison. Damn, son, I don't even get their first names?" 

"Alec Hardison," Hardison said, holding out a hand for the man to shake. "But most people just call me Hardison. Yeah, including Eliot. And Parker ain't got any other name to give. So you wanna be friendly? She's Parker. I'm Hardison." He sat down next to Eliot on the couch, comfortably close. 

He nodded slowly. "All right, Hardison," he said. "In that case, I'm Tom. So, Eliot said business partners too, right? And he's a chef?" 

"Hardison owns the pub," Parker cut in. "We brew our own beer. Mostly Hardison does that, but he's the money guy, too. Eliot's in charge of the menu, and he's one of the chefs. I do... things. Security. Hostessing. Whatever needs doing to keep the customers happy." 

Eliot's dad looked at her appraisingly, then at his son's muscled build. "You work security? Not Eliot? I know he's got the training... one of the few things I do know." 

Eliot gave her a little smile. "I do my share," he told his dad. "But these two can hold their own. Parker kicked some serious ass when there was that incident while Hardison and I were in Japan last year." 

"And I'm guessing that beer that I found on my doorstep, that was one of Hardison's?" He shook his head. "Wasn't like anythin' else I'd ever tasted. These people of yours, Eliot, they're extraordinary. Should've known you wouldn't settle for anythin' less." 

Eliot looked at the other two, hesitancy in his eyes. Parker made a "go ahead" motion. She'd pulled the cover story up to give him time to decide, but whether or not to let his dad in on everything, that had to be his choice. She knew that. 

"Dad," he said, "if you really wanna know what kind of man I've been since I left..." 

"I want to know who you are now," his dad said. 

"Who I am now, then," Eliot said. "If you really wanna know... it's more complicated than the pub." 

"I'm listening," his dad said. 

"When we met," he said, looking at the other two, "the three of us, we were all known for... less than legal activities, all different kinds. And we haven't given those up. We just... use 'em for a different purpose. We help people. People bein' taken advantage of by people with more power'n they should have. People who can't get help legally." His voice went low and mournful, and his gaze was steady on Parker. "These two, they never got near as low as I did. They never hurt anybody. Least, nobody who didn't hurt them first. I did. I was... not a good man." 

"And now you are?" 

"Now I'm... better." 

"You're good, Eliot," Hardison said, low and earnest. "You were good when we met. You saved my life." 

"I killed people, Hardison," he replied. "I've killed people since then." 

"When you had to, yeah," Hardison insisted. "To protect yourself. To protect us." 

Parker climbed up to sit on the back of the couch next to Eliot, twining her fingers in his hair. "Our good wolf," she said. "He has teeth, and he uses them." 

"You're an odd duck, ain't'cha?" Eliot's dad asked her. 

"I'm a cat," she corrected. "I'm an odd cat." 

"Ah," he said, nodding. "My mistake." 

Eliot relaxed under her touch. "She's the best cat burglar in the whole damn world," he told his dad proudly. "And one o' the two best criminal masterminds." 

She grinned brilliantly down at him. 

"And Hardison's our hacker, makeup artist, and, yeah, money guy for that side of the business, too," Eliot continued. 

"Not gonna tell him how I'm the best hacker?" Hardison asked. 

"Said it enough in DC for one lifetime," Eliot grumbled. "Don't get a swelled head." 

"And you're the best at hitting people," Parker told Eliot, still stroking his hair, "and the best at flirting for a con, but you're even better at making food. Like Sophie is better at directing." 

"I was thinkin' about retiring from the life, just being a chef, but they do so much good, and they need my help," Eliot told his dad. "There's nothin' like workin' next to them, the moment we get things right again, and the mark realizes he's not gonna get away with the shit he's been doin'." 

"Gloating is always fun," Parker agreed. 

"But my favorite part is always givin' the client the good news," Hardison said. "Telling 'em they can live the way they want to again. That the guy who hurt them isn't gonna keep hurting people." 

"So you're vigilantes?" Eliot's dad asked. "You think you're heroes?" 

"We are heroes," Parker said simply. 

"We saved the world, what, twice, if you count averting the great wheat famine?" Hardison contributed. "The second time, with the Spanish flu, that might not've been officially sanctioned, but we got a big ol' thank you from Eliot's old commander when it was done. Records wiped clean. So clearly someone in the system thinks we're better out here working for good than we would be locked up." 

Eliot just shrugged. "They're the smartest people I know," he told his dad, "and I've met people all over who are the best at all different jobs. If they say what we do is right, then I trust 'em to know. But I see the evidence, every time. People gettin' back their lives. Gettin' back to their jobs, and bein' able to help other people in turn. And yeah, bad guys gettin' their due. That too. That needs doin'." 

Tom sighed. "You don't live by the rules that I tried to teach you." 

Eliot had on that expression he sometimes got, almost a smile, but not quite, because he knew he wasn't telling the person what they wanted to hear. "No." 

"Is that really so bad?" Hardison asked. 

Eliot's dad made a moue, considering the three of them. It took him a long moment to start speaking. "I know you... but I don't. I could never have imagined what you'd become, what it would look like if you went through hell and came out the other side. It hurt too much, to try. It hurts, now, to look at you." He frowned, and his eyes got a faraway look in them. "I knew if you'd died in the service, someone would've told me. But I always thought, when there was no sign of you, when Aimee stopped talking about you, maybe you'd died some other place, some other way. Took me ten years to believe that. Took ten more before Aimee told me you'd been 'round again." He looked at the floor, his hands clasped around each other. "That's when I knew, it wasn't anythin' out there keepin' you away, it was me." 

Eliot shifted uncomfortably. Hardison laid a hand on his arm, steadying him. 

Tom kept speaking. "She told me what you did for her pop. Not the details, I didn't know you were runnin' with criminals. But that you did the impossible, got him back his last horse and his livelihood, _that_ she said." He sighed. "Since then, I'd been hopin' I was wrong. That you'd gone out there and built a life, that you didn't fall into any of the traps I saw in front of you. That you hadn't come back because I didn't know you half as well as I thought. And that's a terrible thing for a guy to hope." He looked Eliot in the eye. "But right now I'm sorry, I'm sorry I was right." 

Eliot's teeth worried at his lip as he considered that. 

"Dad, there are things... I might wish I hadn't done, but I couldn't have just lived here. I wouldn't have found all these things I'm good at. All these things, all these people I love. I wouldn't have found them." 

Tom looked like he was struggling with himself. Finally he gave himself a little shake, and said, "Honestly, I don't know what to do with you. Why now, why today, no warnin' at all?" 

"We're, uh..." Eliot started, but didn't know how to continue. 

Hardison took up the ball. "We're kinda trying to save the world again, but it's gonna bring a lot of heat down. Honestly, we need somewhere to lay low." 

"Uh huh," Eliot's dad said, eyebrows raised in skepticism. "And what's the world in danger from now?" 

"The people who engineered and profited from the 2008 crisis." Parker spoke now, passing the ball back and forth with Hardison as they told the story. "They still have the money. The government and Interpol know it was them. They have all the records, all the proof. But they didn't want to destabilize the world by prosecuting." 

"And the system continues. Inequality's gettin' out of control. Money breeds money. What the people on the bottom end of the spectrum have gets worth less and less." 

"Corporations, bankers, politicians and super PACs, they have the world in a stranglehold that's hurting regular people." 

"If we do this right, we bring 'em down. But they won't go quiet." 

"And we're the ones that stole the evidence. The Black Book." 

"We're pulling in all the hackers and criminals and subversive groups we trust to do this right, when we can't. Got a contact at Anonymous, sent info to the Rising Tide, the Lone Gunmen, the Vulture, the Black Queen - well, honestly, not sure if she'll come down on our side, she's hooked up with the feds, but I trust her enough not to say anything to tip 'em off." 

"We just want to take back the money they stole, and set things right." 

Tom slumped back in his chair, looking at them. "The crisis, huh?" he said. "You got proof they did that on purpose? 2008 - that was a bad year, that we could tell, even way out here. An' it's not gettin' better on its own." 

Eliot nodded. "So can we stay? Just for a little while?" 

His dad contemplated the three on his sofa. "It's just me and your grandma these days," he said. "She's asleep now, but tomorrow... we'll see what she says. For now, get on upstairs." 

Tom let them pull the truck into his garage, just to keep talk to a minimum. It'd get around, anyway, eventually, but no one would talk to strangers, and Hardison had some antisurveillance tricks up his sleeve. He did a quick bug sweep while the others settled in in their own ways. 

Eliot found his old room pretty much as he'd left it, which was sort of creepy, if he thought about it, but then his dad wasn't the sort to waste money updating a room that probably wasn't used for much in particular. 

They all curled tight together on the twin bed, Eliot laying on the outside edge, Parker taking the position she'd come to prefer when one or both of them were stressed, which was stretched out on top of Eliot, using him as her bed, and Alec wedged in between the other two and the wall. He didn't mind tight spaces as long as the two of them were there with him. And Parker's hand skritching at his hair definitely helped. 

They all dozed lightly for a while, keeping an ear out for any disturbance in the house, any warning beeps from Hardison's machines. 

Parker fell into a deep sleep first, and then Hardison, and finally Eliot, as inevitably happened when he had the comforting, heavy weight of Parker on top of him and no choice but to lie still and rest. 

* * *

The morning smelled of coffee, and a paradoxical mix of dust and fresh air. 

Eliot tipped a sleepily pouting Parker off of himself and onto Hardison, and she curled against him with a resigned hum as Eliot went to piss. The creaky spots in the floor were disconcertingly familiar. 

After that, he went to investigate the kitchen. His dad was there, making eggs, presumably for himself and Grandma. 

"Eliot," his dad said, turning wide eyes on his son, as if surprised that last night hadn't been a dream. He squinted for a second. "I don't got any of whatever fancy food you and your friends are used to." 

Eliot shook his head. "Hardison and I can make do with whatever you got. Parker always travels with a supply of her favorite cereal." 

Tom chuckled. "Odd cat," he said. 

"That she is," Eliot agreed. 

Eliot's dad continued making eggs and toast for the whole household, and Eliot went upstairs to get his lovers up. He found them in the hallway, though, Hardison stumbling towards the bathroom with Parker clinging to his back, refusing to let go of her replacement source of warmth. He chuckled at them, and told them, "breakfast in five," as he headed back to the room to get dressed. 

Grandma was sitting at the table when he got back down. 

Eliot's grandma was... well, she was ninety. She hadn't been, before, and somehow thirty years looked most shocking on her. But her eyes still sparkled, and she still smiled at him in pleased recognition. 

"Eliot!" she exclaimed in her tiny shaky voice. "It's been long enough!" 

He smiled back at her. "Yeah, Grandma," he said. "I think it has." He paused for a moment. "A lotta... a lotta things happened, while I was gone. A lotta things changed. Things you wouldn't approve of. But I'm back in a place where I can be proud of who I am, and what I do. And I've got... people. People I love." 

She nodded. "Are you happy?" she asked simply. 

"Yeah," he told her. "Yeah, I am." 

"Then so am I." She kissed him on the cheek, then applied herself to her toast. 

Tom watched them thoughtfully. 

The other two came in, then, sitting down at the table and muttering thanks, Parker for an empty bowl and a glass of milk, Hardison for his own eggs and toast. 

"You didn't have to," Hardison continued. "We don't wanna get in the way of your routine, here." 

"Don't be ridiculous, you're guests," Tom said. 

"Uninvited guests," Parker pointed out through a mouthful of cereal. 

"Just let us know if there's anything we can do," Eliot insisted. 

His dad frowned. "Your sisters are coming over for Sunday dinner," he said finally. "Sadie usually cooks. She won't be expecting three extra mouths." 

"Maybe I can help," Eliot said. "Make a dish or two ahead. You know what she's makin'?" 

The conversation was almost comfortable, from there on out. Eliot still had his manners, still knew how to make himself useful, and that counted for a lot, in this house. 

They'd be okay, here. 

Yeah, they'd be okay. 


End file.
